The topic for the last Crochet Club of 2016 was ‘Last Minute Christmas’ and I provided several patterns of little items to make quickly as last minute gifts. One of the popular makes was a quick purse pattern or ‘recipe’ which I thought I’d share with you.

This can be made in a couple of hours if a small purse, or you could use the same methodology to make a bigger purse or bag which would take longer.

The materials we used were:
8cm (3¼”) wide curved purse frames with a ‘kiss’ fastener and holes for sewing the fabric to (I sourced them from ebay)
Double knit yarn (only a small amount needed – 25g should be ample)
4mm (US G/6) crochet hook
Tapestry needle for sewing in ends.
Large eyed sharp sewing needle and thinner yarn or sewing thread

Your tension should be quite firm to create a strong fabric with no holes, so you may need to use a slightly smaller hook to get the fabric firm. The advantage of making a firm fabric is that the purse will not need lining!

Abbreviations
English crochet terms used
St(s) = stitch(es)
Ch = chain
Ss = slip stitch
Dc = double crochet.
You also need to know how to make a magic ring

Recipe
The purse starts with a circle and increases in a similar way to a mandala, you are aiming to get the circle the right diameter to fit the frame for sewing to. So start with a magic ring (or 4ch joined with a ss), work in a continuous spiral with 6dc for the first round, 12dc for the second round, 18dc for the third round etc until your circle is the correct size for the frame.

Find the correct diameter by folding the circle and hold against the closed frame, you need to ensure part of the circle creates a gusset at the sides of the frame.

Once you have the correct diameter work rounds with no increases for about 6cm (2½”), break yarn, fasten off and weave in ends.

Finally sew the purse to the frame. I used cotton dk yarn which I was able to split to make a finer thread to sew the purse to the frame, but you could use matching sewing thread.

For my purse I did 9 rounds of increases (to a circle of 54 sts around) then 13 straight rounds, but some people in the group used more sts and rounds as their tension was a little tighter than mine.

If you make one of these as a gift, you could pop some ‘universal gift vouchers’ inside!